about crashRun

crashRun is my current roguelike game project, which began as an entry into the 7 Day Roguelike Contest the community holds from time to time (if I recall, I started during the contest running from October 8th to October 15th of 2006). A lot of the code was lifted from my older, moribund roguelike project, Wa.

crashRun is a sci-fi/cyberpunk roguelike, set in near future. In it, you take on the role of a crash-runner, a professional hacker/saboteur. In the world of crashRun, corporations have increasing power and often employ people such as you to break into their competitors' facilities and steal or destroy whatever you can to give them a leg up in the marketplace. Like any good crash-runner, you are addicted to speed and other chemicals.

You are a n00b in crash-runner circles. Until now you've been stuck with joe-jobs: vandalizing websites, credit card fraud, all while waiting for the chance to make a name for yourself. Running low on credits, you answer a posting for a job that more experienced crash-runners seem to have been avoiding.

Turns out the gig is dicey one: break into an abandoned military complex that used to be run by the Pensky Corporation, and disable an AI system that someone forgot to unplug when the facility was decommissioned. The AI has started to attack networks over the Internet and the Feds want it shut down. Who knows what kind of mutants are running around a place like that, and what sort of security systems are also still running.

The money and street cred was too good to pass up, so you took the offer. Packed up your favourite shotgun, your most expensive sunglasses, the last of your stash of speed, and hopped into a military chopper to be flown to the site.

Oh, there's just one catch: if you haven't reported in that your mission was successful within 48 hours, the Department of Defense will nuke the complex from orbit to stop the rogue AI...

crashRun is written in Python and, for the moment, uses pygame to display the user interface (while still maintaining the roguelike tradition of ASCII displays). crashRun is free software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

unfamiliar with roguelikes?

Roguelikes are a genre of computer RPGs, typically hack-n-slash dungeon crawlers. Some of the typical features of the genre include: randomized dungeon and content, ASCII displays and perma-death (if your character dies you need to begin the game with a new one).

See the links page for some of the more popular representatives of the genre.